


as the word caves in

by orphan_account



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, Butterfly, Clay | Dream & Technoblade Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), DNF, Death, Fluff, Happy, M/M, POV GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Past AU, Runaway, Sad, Sadness, TommyInnit - Freeform, Tubbo - Freeform, dream - Freeform, dreamnotfound, george is a prince, lol rip, sapnap - Freeform, very very slight nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28771683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: George had enough of his family; the way they act fake in front of everyone.Running away seemed like a mistake, he went from royal to nothing. But then he met Clay.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo/TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	as the word caves in

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS - Blood mention, Death, Swearing, Guns, Abusive parents, Alcoholic parents

His anger slowly fizzled away as he got further and further into the woods, but it was soon replaced with a burning anxiety when the realisation struck that he was totally and utterly alone. The sun was slowly sinking beneath the treetops, painting the sky with colourful hues. The angle of the trees cast eerie shadows all around him, and at every turn, every footstep, he regretted his actions and words a little bit more. He really knew he had messed up, truly, when the sun fully set. There was no light, it was completely and utterly dark. He shivered, pulling his blue cloak around him. Even in the pitch black, he could see his breath in front of him when he breathed his shaky breaths.

George ran over what he had done in his head more times than he could count as he walked as far away from the castle as he possibly could, but he never truly had thought of the consequences until now. 

His parents had such high expectations of him; they always expected him to be so good, so intelligent, so perfect. With expectations that high, how did they expect him not to crack under the severe pressure? That’s exactly what George had done that night. It had started just like any other Sunday evening, with an obnoxiously expensive dinner on a ridiculously large dining table. His mother had the audacity to ask when George intended on getting married to a girl who he had met a grand total of twice. She was lovely, fair-faced and gorgeous, by the name of Nikita. He’d tried to be as polite as possible, in denying it, but with is fathers short temper, it descended into a full-scale row in seconds. Deciding he was sick of, George picked himself up from the table and walked out. 

Looking back on it now, six hours later, it occurred that only grabbing a small sack with a loaf of bread and a flask of water was not enough food to keep him alive for more than maybe three days, if he rationed properly. He was a prince, he had no experience with hunting, sanitization of water, any of that. Even with his heart rate pacing well above what was average, George still found his eyes heavy as he fell into a very restless state of sleep.

\- - - - -

“Tommy! Don’t poke him, he’s still sleeping, and its rude.”

“Oh, piss off Toby, have a laugh, I’m not gonna hurt him, he’s all cold and shit. Do you think he’s dead?” 

George opened his eyes slowly, suddenly aware that the sky was a pale shade of blue, and he wondered how he’d managed to remain asleep through the bright lights. There were two teenagers in front of him, a lanky, blonde one, and a shorter, brunette one. He didn’t recognise either of them. “Excuse me.” He inquired, “Do I know you?”

The brunette one shook his head. “I’ve never seen you before. What you doing in our neck of the woods? And where did you get your cloak? That’s real velvet, Techno tells us about it all the time, it’s really expensive.” George had no idea what a ‘Techno’ was, but he just ran with it, eyes flicking between the boys. “Oh, I’m Toby, but the way. And this is Tommy.” He gestured to the blonde boy, who had slung his jacket over a tree branch and was attempting to climb the tree George had slept under. “You look cold. C’mon, we’ll take you to Phil, he’s better at words and introductions than I am.”

George considered his options. He didn’t have many other ones: stay under a tree and probably freeze to death, or starve, or be eaten by some form of carnivorous beast. Or he could leave where he was with these kids, and get food, shelter, warmth. They were kids, how could they hurt him?

“Okay.”

\- - - - -

Apparently, ‘Techno’ was a person. He was Tommy’s older brother. He has long pink hair, and a golden crown that was so obnoxious to George, and he was a prince, for gods sake. He was interesting to listen too, though. He was smart and knew so many amazing stories. Even though his voice showed no emotion, he still kept George interested in so long. His other brother, Wilbur, was different, but in a way, George liked him more. He seemed more relaxed, with his maroon beanie that he wore every day and his guitar (he was so good at it). What surprised him the most was their dynamic with their father, Phil.

George was used to being smacked silly whenever he made a mistake. He was used to having to constantly cover up bruises he made on his pale skin. Phil was so much warmer. Tommy smashed a vase in his house and Phil hugged him and told him it was alright; they could always replace it.

And their house was another thing entirely. It was closed off by a wooden fence, of sorts. There was a house, blue walls and a wooden roof. There was a deep blue tent and a white tent on the hill, barrels lining the sides full of their belongings. What terrified George was that Tommy and Toby were allowed to share a tent, to George that was an accident waiting to happen.

The thing that caught his eye the most, was a blonde man who stayed in the white tent on the hill. He was tall and stocky, well built. He looked strong and scary, but also warm and comforting in a way. He had sharp jawline and brilliant green eyes. His aura radiated confidence, but in a good way. 

From the way Phil explained it, Toby wasn’t Phil’s biological son. Neither was the blonde, who was named Clay. They lived with them, because they’d ran away from their village together. Toby and Clay were like siblings, Clay had kept him safe. Toby was only ten when they ran away, and Clay was fifteen. Apparently, they’d been on the run for five months before Tommy found them. It was ironic, Tommy found them while ‘running away’ because he’d had a fight with Techno. Toby and Tommy were the same age, they had clicked instantly. Clay was just a bit younger than Wilbur and Techno, they all fit together so well. That’s what George noticed, as he settled in with them in the next month. He found himself calmer, happier, and not worrying once about how he was supposed to act all the time. 

He’d became so very close with Clay. They did so much together, every day. When they had been putting the horses in the stables one night, and they’d slumped aside the hay bales and watched the stars. It was silent, there was no talking. When they’d been play-fighting in the living area of Phil’s house and Wilbur came in half-way through, having just got out of the shower, and he had curlers in his soaking hair. For days after, the two of them took the piss out of Wilbur at any given opportunity. 

When he was with Clay, he felt so safe, so warm, so happy. They were affectionate, hugging all the time. But it was just a friendship. That’s all it was. And it was perfectly normal for a friend to constantly imagine kissing their best friend whenever they looked into their eyes. 

Right?

\- - - - -

“C’mon. It would be funny.” 

“Clay. I am not going to let you push me off the cliff edge so you can hear my scream get slightly quieter as a fall.”

“Look! A butterfly!”

You’re excited about a butterfly? You’re twenty-one, Clay. Not twelve.”

“So? Look at it! It’s got blue and green wings and it’s so cool!”  
They were stood on the cliff edge, not far away from their home. The sun was setting, and the ocean was calm; smooth waves rippling over the water gently. Clay was insistent on pushing George over, only to jump in after him, but George was stubbornly refusing. And so, they ended up playfighting, right on the edge of a cliff. It was dangerously exhilarating, the threat of falling off the cliff edge.

It wasn’t as fun, however, when Clay pinned George down in the grass, one hand on the grass just above George’s left ear, the other one stroking the hair out of his face so he could get a better look at George, who had gotten extremely flustered and had blushed a furious red colour. Clay seemed to notice this, because his playful smirk fell off his face, and was replaced with a worried look, and he quickly moved away.

George became suddenly aware of the noise, or lack of it. The silence was so loud, so prominent, as he straightened himself up. Clay muttered something under his breath, something that George couldn’t hear. He was too busy focusing on his pounding heart, and the blood racing through his ears. It was defining; he was relieved when Clay cleared his throat, and suggested they walked the short walk home. All the way, neither of them spoke, but George hardly noticed the silence that time. His skin was too busy tingling in the places Clay had touched him; his brain to busy burning with questions. In the split second that they had made eye contact; George’s brown eyes locking with Clay’s piercing green ones. There had been a strange connection, like the whole world fell perfectly into place. 

Long after, when he was laid in bed, these thoughts were pacing around his head like they were attempting to run a marathon. He couldn’t sleep, and so he decided to go to the beach, sit on the sand and and watch the moon.

The white sand was soft under his fingers, the water tickling his toes softly. The water reflected the white moon reflecting ripples across the gentle waves. The stars glistened in the sky, and the realisation struck George that he had never actually seen the stars before, properly. In his twenty-four years of living on Earth, he’d only ever seen them from his miserable bedroom window. In his miserable castle with his parents. Lonely hours spent scouring the library, reading pages upon pages since he learnt to read. He would escape his room for hours on end to hide behind parchment and ink-soaked pages, pretending nothing else was real. He could be free, live his dream life in books, with loving fathers who didn’t anger fast, and mothers who weren’t crying or yelling at every given time.

Life with Phil and his sons and Clay, it was just so much better.

He’d been there for a whole month, George realised, as he stared out into the ocean. Surely people were looking for him by now, right? They would’ve noticed his absence immediately, but did they even care? Panic began to set over him as he started to cry; big tears sliding down his face, carving a path over his pale cheekbones. He didn’t want to be found. In his twenty-four years of living, he had never once been as happy as he was when he was pranking people with Tommy and Toby, or reading with Techno, or playing guitar with Wilbur, or cooking with Phil.

And Clay. Had he ruined everything they had together; their strong bond, all ruined over a simple blush. Because George was in love with his best fucking friend.

\- - - - -

He trudged back towards his bedroom, wiping the tears from his eyes slowly. He would’ve noticed the faint light coming from Clay’s tent, the quiet sniffles coming from inside. But George wasn’t looking. He was preoccupied with crying.

Fate was a funny thing sometimes.

\- - - - -

It felt like George had just finally drifted asleep, when he was rudely shaken awake by a very clearly distressed Wilbur. He was confused, Wilbur looked purely terrified, there was fear in his eyes. 

“Wilbur? What happened”  
Barely had George even got his words out when there was shouting from outside: Techno had seemingly woken up Tommy and Toby, and judging from Tommy cursing loudly, he wasn’t too pleased with it.

Phil burst through the door, and that was when George realised something was really wrong. Phil was always calm in every situation, but now, he was alarmed, alert and worried. The sun had barely risen outside, it was still mostly dark and shadowed. “C’mon boys. They’ve found us. We need to leave. Now.”

George had no idea who ‘they’ were, but he knew he could trust Phil’s words. That was, until he walked out his door and saw the threat that had caused such carnage so early in the morning.

His father.

He was sat on horseback, a brilliant white stallion, and there was an army of maybe thirty men behind them, all clad with guns and horses. He was speaking, shouting something, but George wasn’t listening. He couldn’t make anything out over the roaring blood in his ears, his thundering heart, his shaking breaths. He couldn’t control his shaking hands as he brought them to his head, trying desperately to block out memories coming back.

\- - - - -

It was early evening, George was eight or nine, and he’d been cooking all day with Madame Armstrong, the chef. He really wasn’t hungry, considering he’d been snaking on and off all day. The last thing he wanted to do was eat an obnoxiously large dinner, but there he was; sat at the table. He was being shouted at, his father had obviously been drinking again, George could smell it on his breath. He desperately tried to explain that he wasn’t hungry, frantically apologising, begging his mother to call his father off.

That was the night that he hit George for the first time. Right across the face, and it stung like a bitch. After that, George would hide whenever his dad drank. He was found sometimes and used like a punching bag to take out his anger on George. He would scream his name loudly.

\- - - - -

“GEORGE!”

Stumbling, George woke up. Had he passed out?

His surroundings were in shambles. There wooden fence was burnt to a crisp, the grass was singed and dead. Tommy and Toby’s tent was collapsed, holes in it, probably burn marks. 

“GEORGE!”

“CLAY!”

The blonde ran towards him, jumping over holes in the ground and dropped weapons. He pulled George into a crushing hug, squeezing him tight. “George. Oh- my God- God- oh George I thought I lost you. I thought you were gone and I- I. What would I have done without you?”

“Clay? What happened, where is everyone?”

Clay pulled away from the hug and looked at George solemnly. Tears frosted his eyes. “I- oh George. He wanted to take you back. He- the way he described missing you as ‘missing his punching bag’. He hit you, didn’t he, Georgie? He was the king and he treated you like that. Phil wouldn’t let them take you, Tommy and Toby were stood over you so protectively. They- they were trying so hard to fight them off. I- it was so brave of them. I’ve never seen anything like it. Phil was so angry, he fought them all away, they scattered so fast. Shit- George it was so scary.”

Their faces were close together. George could feel Clay’s breath on his neck. His heart was pounding, and in a quick spout of confidence he kissed Clay right on the lips.

It was short and sweet, and he pulled away, flustered. Clay looked at him, and George regretted it. Clay didn’t like him, of course he didn’t.

Until he smashed his lips back on Georges.

In that moment, he forgot everything that ever happened in the world. There was so much passion, so much emotion in it, that the world seemed to spin. One of Clay’s hands slid up to his jawline, tilting his head to deepen the kiss even more. His other had slid down George’s back, to his waistline, pulling him in closer.

He pressed him against the wall and George instinctively wrapped his legs around Clay’s waist, pulling him in closer and closer. Forever more George wished he could stay there, like that, with his blood pulsing through him, feeling so alive, so electrified at Clay’s slightest touch. Until Clay yelped out loud, and tears sprang from his eyes as he collapsed on top of George.

There was blood all over George’s fingers, from a wound in Clay’s back. He sobbed into George’s chest, crying that he was in so much pain.

George looked up at the man stood twenty yards away, whom he hadn’t noticed until now. He had a crazed look in his eyes, his black hair windswept and kept out of his face only by a blood-stained white bandana. Without giving him time to think, George grabbed the gun from Clay’s belt and shot blind to the man. Judging from the cries, he hit him.

He turned his attention back to Clay, who had slumped to the floor. George laid him in his lap and stroked his hair slowly. 

“As the world caves in, it’s you that I lie with, Georgie. It’ll always be you.”

George looked at Clay in the eyes, admiring the beauty of them carefully.

“Look Georgie. We’re in the stars. Together. We’re in the stars.”

George couldn’t process what he was saying. He prayed silently that he wasn’t going to die. This was all a vicious dream, and Clay was going to be alright. But the blood seeping through Clay’s lime hoodie onto George’s jeans that he’d slept in told him otherwise.

“It’s you I welcome death with. As the world- as the world caves in.” He reached a feeble hand up to George’s cheek, wiping away the salty tears. “I love you, Georgie. And it’s going to be ok. We’ll meet again, alright? In the stars”.

“Please Clay. Please don’t leave me. Please.”

“I don’t want to Georgie, I don’t want too. But I don’t have a choice. We will meet again, okay?

“In the stars.”

“In the stars.” George watched as the light in Clay’s eyes finally shut out, for the last time. He stayed there for a long time after Clay’s body turned cold. Or it could have been seconds. George lost track of the time.

“George? George are you there?” 

Phil. 

He was calling for him, so that meant that he still had hope. He wasn’t totally alone in this cruel, underserving world. Phil ran over, and with his help George managed to stop clinging to his body, as if he hoped he could expel some of his life into Clay. Neither of them spoke, but George got the hint Phil wanted him to follow him somewhere. Somewhat difficultly, he left Clay’s side and followed him.

\- - - - -

“Tommy and Toby had fought so bravely. They never showed it, but they idolised you George. In the month you knew them, you became like a brother to them.”

Phil’s voice was shaky as he reached Clay’s tent, and George understood why when he saw something almost as bad as the love of his life dying in his arms.

Techno’s pink hair was stuck to his back with sweat, his arm tightly wrapped around Wil, who was sobbing over two lifeless bodies. Two bodies of two kids. The blonde one had his arm clung to the shorter one, like he had died trying to protect him.

“They’re gone. THEY”RE GONE. It- i- its all my fault. It’s all my fucking fault. If I had just turned myself in, if I never left in the first place, none of this would’ve happened. Tommy is dead. Toby is dead. Clay is dead. They’re DEAD PHIL AND I FUCKING CAUSED IT. It was me.”

Before Phil could reply, he turned and ran. He didn’t see Wilbur and Techno get up to hug them, he didn’t hear Phil explaining that they loved him like a son; how it was far from his fault; how he wasn’t going to let George return to an abusive household. 

\- - - - -

George felt numb. He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t happy. All he could do was stare at the coastline and cry, his body shaking with dry sobs.

He was angered by the waves. They were so soft, calm. How could the world be so ignorant? How could the sun rise and set every day; how could the waves still flow together, when Clay was gone? When Tommy and Toby didn’t even reach adulthood before their life was taken from them? It was unfair. Nothing was fair. Was human life really so unimportant in the grand scheme of things? Did it not matter that much?

George tucked his knees to his chest. “I just can’t imagine how I can be okay, now that you’re gone.” He whispered. A blue and green butterfly landed on his elbow, and stayed there for a few seconds, before flying off.

“In the stars.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've never actually written a proper fanfic before but I had this idea a few days ago and it's all I've been thinking about since then.
> 
> Also follow my twitter @1nn1t_ because if this doesn't flop I'll probably write some more. If it flops then this wasn't me.
> 
> Comment, leave Kudos and whatnot if you enjoyed it <3


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